Taking Care of Community Members
Session Name: Taking Care of Community Members Session room and timeslot: 10, 2pm Organizers name: Ben van 't Ende Note Taker Name: Tom Callaway My Notes: = Taking Care of Community Members = - Ben van 't Ende (TYPO3) - Kevin Turner (OSBridge, Portland Python) - Van Riper (Google Community Organizer) - Phil Bellew (Ubuntu Contributor) - Sarah (Fedora) - Kristina Hoeppner (Catalyst IT) = Overview = * interested in talking about responsibility and leadership * paths that communities should take/not take * Do we have organically grown OSS project, or do we have governance? = Notes = * (Ben) involved in lawsuit relating to taking developers from company into open source project - community manager means to take care of community around you - at what stage can you just kick developers out - who has the authority to do that? * (Van) who has responsibility to take care of community? * (Ben) Leadership in OSS projects is important - examples of people leaving communities because of lack of leadership - maybe OSS projects are organic and losses are part of that * (van) there isn't one right way - being intentionally conscious about how you're running the group - some are organic and run themselves well - others are very structured and run well - becomes an issue when they aren't running well * (Ben) two levels: - community - leadership of community - (to van) what level of responsibility do you feel? * (van) Google recently rebranded developer initiative - Google Technologies forced to become part of it, forced to lose established brand - had to convince community to adopt new brand, community revolted - but there were a lot of good reasons to do it - surveyed community about advantages, 98% said they would - only very early adopters were very attached to branding, very vocal and toxic in community - people were getting personal, nasty for the first time - had to step in, said i thought it was right thing, but would not force it - did survey, told community i was their advocate - thankfully they were on board! * (Kristina) No community manager in my community - interested in what you actually do as a manager - sometimes has a negative connotation * (van) don't describe myself to the community that way - but to my employer (google) i do - more of an advocate for community to google (company) - tend to think of it more like organizer, not manager - global organizer of organizer, not managing them * (Ben) i agree, role is to pick up on what is going on - sit in on meetings - appointed as community manager to provide big picture, connect teams together - management doesnt have bad connotation, but not in that business * (van) local meetups run by independent organizers - no real power over them - basic guidelines (mostly relevant to google, majority of meetings around google technologies) - google employees can't run them as organizers - had to step down as organizer to work for google - act as facilitator on mailing list - organize global organizer summit - choose active community members (150+) - spend money on them * (Ben) Taking care of community members - how do you run your community, how do you take care of them - aside from giving them money * (van) they're developer groups - early access to API programs - early invites - organize visits by important developers - path for addressing concerns and complaints - (Germany has issues which delay API/functionality releases) * (Ben) do you resolve disputes? * (van) mostly about organizational issues - some people not running it appropriately, making money off it - running a group without affiliation (improper) * (Ben) is it rewarding? * (van) mostly trying to get people to work together - people in same place not getting along, if only they could work together it would be better situation * (Kristin) my perspective, i try to connect people - if people email me with interest, and i know of someone else with same interest, try to connect them - point to forum, encourage posting publicly - if i know that devs aren't watching forums, i send them emails notifying them of things in their area - ensure that forum posts are answered - not everyone can wade through mailing lists - gentle prodding, i like to encourage a large amount of people answering * (ben) to group: just starting as comm. manager? * (Kevin) more involved with local communities - not much event organization, but i help with conference - lot of physical things involved in taking care of conference - making sure people have food they can eat with dietary restrictions - i like OSBridge because of yoga class offered, safe space, code of conduct - we do some conflict resolution policy for event, but don't usually have to use it * (Sarah) not a manager, just a member - moving from a small community into a larger one (fedora) - observing how people interact, how decisions get made - as far as fedora and responsibility towards comm members, havent thought about that - my view is that people join a community to scratch their own itch (dev perspective) - write code they want to use - havent thought about how to look after, help, reward * (ben) My case is specific, i do a lot for the project, might be an exception - still an interesting question, what is the responsibility of governing organization - how do you handle governance, how do you change it? * (van) could become more of an issue as we mature - thinking about making a steering committee for 800 community managers * (ben) like a community council? * (van) want them to run like a community, self-govern, just be there in a support role - but not there right now, have to be benevolent dictator, not push them in direction they dont want to go * (ben) is there a plan to get more governance? * (van) want to turn it over to community, from philosophical relations - google head of community gets this, knows it is there community * (ben) you have to "massage" community - recent transitions in software, changing naming scheme - thought after discussing it 10 times in steering committee and core group, we had a decision - but when we took it to community at large, they erupted - you can get acceptance when you don't call it a decision * (kristin) any difference in older vs younger communities * (phil) we had a youth council, other council wanted to do their own thing for a few months - sent them all an email telling them they were fired now - rest of ubuntu youth said "hey phil, you're the best" * (kristin) sometimes you have to be a bit autocratic * (phil) you have to take a stand - 20 year old running things for 15 year old - have to make them look like an asshole sometimes * (van) more like a kill the messenger thing * (phil) ubuntu has code of conduct - had a user making anti-semetic comments, took him aside told him it was unacceptable, he repeated and i had to kick him off - if i dont make that decision, the other 30 people would leave, don't want one guy to ruin it * (van) what i'm trying to do is be very careful in order to reach a decision - sometimes better to follow gut feeling * (phil) much easier to shoot out an email to see if people care, to take temperature - if no responses, then probably okay - when i had to axe some top people, i emailed them to ask if they wanted to stay, no reply means no - youth can be different to work with, normal OSS community is range of ages, don't know how old ppl are over the internet - big diff between someone 85 and 12, life experience, makes them act different, sometimes 12 year old has new perspective - sometimes you have to listen to what ppl say but not act on it "thats cool, but we're not doing it" * (Sarah) make them feel like they are heard * (phil) do you have to make tough decisions like that a lot * (ben) my community is pretty decent, but also quite old (12 years old) - organic community, very balanced * (phil) lack of stance leads to bickering - flaming each others ideas on mailing list, leads to personal battles and people leaving * (ben) main things in my comm are around leadership - how does board function? - issues around transparency, didn't realize we weren't transparent to community * (van) i have that issue too, even in corporate - they think i know things and am holding back - but i couldn't share even if i did! * (phil) jono not telling us everything we know - its true, fact of life * (ben) sometimes you have to be harsh * (van) nice if you can be harsh with a smile * (kristin) point about transparency is a big one, especially in distributed comm - want to know what to expect, how processes work, making sure everyone is on same page * (ben) one thing to get a good feeling, but to keep it, you want to meet up * (van) one lesson i would have: get folks in the same room, very valuable - lasts way beyond actual event, it is a psychological thing - adds context to conversations online - people will be more forgiving, defend people that they know - quality of interaction goes up because of level of trust * (phil) when working w ppl worldwide, perhaps his slang/rhetoric/humor is different from yours * (kevin) comment abt transparency got me thinking - one of my communities was openid community - fascinating because i got to see ppl trying to develop OS specification - then trying to get google to sign on - two totally different worlds - do you have a charter for your community that defines what it is about * (ben) we do, motto is "inspire people to share" * (kevin) a chartering document, in addition to board? * (ben) describes more about how community should act and less about governance - works for leadership and governance * (sarah) all committee meetings are logged, visible on irc - no decisions behind closed doors * (ben) at lower levels yes, but not higher levels - higher levels refuse transparency * (sarah) all in fedora are open * (kristina) everything in our community is open and logged as well - we use meetbot, generates irc meeting minutes automatically - #topic sets topic, #idea for ideas, #action sets action items - irc log available and meeting * (ben) dont use irc, use google hangout * (kristina) we use it because of time difference as inbetween people, can't meet in person due to geographical differences - koha community uses it for years, very good results * (van) tend to use irc along with google hangout, ppl dont use chat built in * (kristina) dont use hangouts * (phil) ubuntu devs use it so ppl can watch * (van) automatically recorded for youtube video, but can watch it live. * * (ben) summary: - real life meetings very important - kind of looking for confirmation that a board/governing would need to take responsibility for comm. members - really depends on type of community * (kristina) most situations board doesnt have to step in - want self-regulating community, except when absolutely needed * (ben) our community's growth is amazing, dips and peaks of activity - but doing very well this year, so many events popping up spontaneously - TYPO3 community (very big in germany)